This chapter argues that the effects of incarceration and prisoners' reentry into the greater community intersects with social work through its concentration on criminal justice. Incarceration and ...
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This chapter argues that the effects of incarceration and prisoners' reentry into the greater community intersects with social work through its concentration on criminal justice. Incarceration and reentry issues are also significant for social work at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. A number of restorative justice processes used within the criminal justice and penal system are reviewed here. A case study is presented which focuses on a unique event: incarcerated men watching a live theatrical performance of a series of vignettes dramatizing victims' experiences with crime and its aftermath. The case study demonstrates the transformative nature of art, shows the necessity for preparation and debriefing for restorative processes, and provides a model for bringing together unlikely partners, such as a prison advocacy organization, victim services, and the state Department of Corrections, around the issues of accountability, repair, and dialogue.Less

Restorative Justice in Prisons

Barb ToewsM. Kay Harris

Published in print: 2010-11-11

This chapter argues that the effects of incarceration and prisoners' reentry into the greater community intersects with social work through its concentration on criminal justice. Incarceration and reentry issues are also significant for social work at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. A number of restorative justice processes used within the criminal justice and penal system are reviewed here. A case study is presented which focuses on a unique event: incarcerated men watching a live theatrical performance of a series of vignettes dramatizing victims' experiences with crime and its aftermath. The case study demonstrates the transformative nature of art, shows the necessity for preparation and debriefing for restorative processes, and provides a model for bringing together unlikely partners, such as a prison advocacy organization, victim services, and the state Department of Corrections, around the issues of accountability, repair, and dialogue.

Sociology, Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility, Law, Crime and Deviance

This chapter describes the plan of the book, defines mass incarceration, and provides historical information on the prison boom in the United States. It links large increases in the incarceration ...
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This chapter describes the plan of the book, defines mass incarceration, and provides historical information on the prison boom in the United States. It links large increases in the incarceration rate to decreases in crime but also to a host of unintended and deleterious outcomes for child well-being and racial inequality. The chapter provides the theoretical rationale for the analyses that follow—arguing that incarceration is now (1) sufficiently common, (2) exceedingly racially disparate, and (3) harmful enough to create and maintain social inequality in child well-being. The social inequality caused by parental incarceration also largely dwarfs the inequality estimates found in other work focused on adult men (or their partners). The chapter argues that a shift in emphasis from the consequences of mass imprisonment for inequality among adult men to those for inequality among their children reveals important, previously unacknowledged long-term effects.Less

Introduction

Sara WakefieldChristopher Wildeman

Published in print: 2013-12-05

This chapter describes the plan of the book, defines mass incarceration, and provides historical information on the prison boom in the United States. It links large increases in the incarceration rate to decreases in crime but also to a host of unintended and deleterious outcomes for child well-being and racial inequality. The chapter provides the theoretical rationale for the analyses that follow—arguing that incarceration is now (1) sufficiently common, (2) exceedingly racially disparate, and (3) harmful enough to create and maintain social inequality in child well-being. The social inequality caused by parental incarceration also largely dwarfs the inequality estimates found in other work focused on adult men (or their partners). The chapter argues that a shift in emphasis from the consequences of mass imprisonment for inequality among adult men to those for inequality among their children reveals important, previously unacknowledged long-term effects.

This chapter draws the different themes together, comparing the relative success each city—Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago—has had in resolving the tensions that lead to riots. These differences ...
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This chapter draws the different themes together, comparing the relative success each city—Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago—has had in resolving the tensions that lead to riots. These differences are related to each place's unique history and governmental structure and the political culture it has evolved through social learning. It also examines recent trends in the three cities, focusing especially on policies designed to achieve greater control over offensive/provocative police behavior. Finally, the chapter looks at prospects for achieving social justice in the face of current trends in mass incarceration and the displacement of minorities, and the potential conflicts between blacks and Latinos in declining economies. Within each group, as in American society in general, class cleavages are becoming greater.Less

Explaining Differences : Predicting Convergence?

Janet L. Abu-Lughod

Published in print: 2007-09-10

This chapter draws the different themes together, comparing the relative success each city—Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago—has had in resolving the tensions that lead to riots. These differences are related to each place's unique history and governmental structure and the political culture it has evolved through social learning. It also examines recent trends in the three cities, focusing especially on policies designed to achieve greater control over offensive/provocative police behavior. Finally, the chapter looks at prospects for achieving social justice in the face of current trends in mass incarceration and the displacement of minorities, and the potential conflicts between blacks and Latinos in declining economies. Within each group, as in American society in general, class cleavages are becoming greater.

This chapter offers a view of the core beliefs around which the legitimacy of contemporary US prisons in federal courts may be said to be justified. Empowered by the Constitution to decide whether ...
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This chapter offers a view of the core beliefs around which the legitimacy of contemporary US prisons in federal courts may be said to be justified. Empowered by the Constitution to decide whether treatment complained of by inmates constitutes ‘cruel and unusual punishment’, and to order an end to conditions that do, federal courts have since the 1960s regularly intervened in state prison operations, ordering new procedures and sometimes whole new facilities (Feeley and Rubin 1998). While this pattern of court driven reforms has much diminished during the period of mass incarceration, the federal courts have been one of the few remaining American political institutions in which the issue of the legitimacy of imprisonment has been regularly raised at all during the long war on crime. Should the courts reawaken on the issue of prisons, their advantages could drive a broader public and political revisiting of mass incarceration.Less

An Unenviable Task: How Federal Courts Legitimized Mass Incarceration

Jonathan Simon

Published in print: 2013-11-21

This chapter offers a view of the core beliefs around which the legitimacy of contemporary US prisons in federal courts may be said to be justified. Empowered by the Constitution to decide whether treatment complained of by inmates constitutes ‘cruel and unusual punishment’, and to order an end to conditions that do, federal courts have since the 1960s regularly intervened in state prison operations, ordering new procedures and sometimes whole new facilities (Feeley and Rubin 1998). While this pattern of court driven reforms has much diminished during the period of mass incarceration, the federal courts have been one of the few remaining American political institutions in which the issue of the legitimacy of imprisonment has been regularly raised at all during the long war on crime. Should the courts reawaken on the issue of prisons, their advantages could drive a broader public and political revisiting of mass incarceration.

The United States has the world’s largest proportion of people behind bars. Mass incarceration and failed rehabilitation have resulted in staggering economic and human costs. Our challenge is to ...
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The United States has the world’s largest proportion of people behind bars. Mass incarceration and failed rehabilitation have resulted in staggering economic and human costs. Our challenge is to develop a proactive, comprehensive, evidence-based “smart decarceration” strategy that will dramatically reduce the number of people who are imprisoned and enable the nation to embrace a more effective and just approach to public safety.Less

Promote Smart Decarceration

Matthew W. EppersonCarrie Pettus-DavisAnnie GrierLeon Sawh

Published in print: 2018-02-01

The United States has the world’s largest proportion of people behind bars. Mass incarceration and failed rehabilitation have resulted in staggering economic and human costs. Our challenge is to develop a proactive, comprehensive, evidence-based “smart decarceration” strategy that will dramatically reduce the number of people who are imprisoned and enable the nation to embrace a more effective and just approach to public safety.

Mass incarceration exists in America on a scale unmatched in global history. America is also the only Western democracy that has not abolished the death penalty; and one of the nations that execute ...
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Mass incarceration exists in America on a scale unmatched in global history. America is also the only Western democracy that has not abolished the death penalty; and one of the nations that execute the most prisoners alongside abusive dictatorships like China, North Korea, and Iran. American justice is further characterized by pervasive racial discrimination, the peculiar “War on Drugs,” the dehumanizing treatment of juveniles, and routine use of harmful solitary confinement. Modern America has thus become a systematic human rights violator in criminal law and punishment. It was not always so, as foreigners once saw American justice as enlightened.
Harsh justice has not made America particularly safe. It has the highest murder rate and the most gun violence in the West due to extraordinarily lax gun control shaped by die-hard partisans of the Second Amendment and lobbying by the NRA.
Criminal justice reform gained more attention after shootings of unarmed black men in Ferguson and beyond led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. However, historical root causes behind this dimension of American exceptionalism have been widely overlooked, including systemic racism, populism, anti-intellectualism, market fundamentalism, and religious fundamentalism.Less

Mass Incarceration, Executions, and Gun Violence in “the Land of the Free”

Mugambi Jouet

Published in print: 2017-04-03

Mass incarceration exists in America on a scale unmatched in global history. America is also the only Western democracy that has not abolished the death penalty; and one of the nations that execute the most prisoners alongside abusive dictatorships like China, North Korea, and Iran. American justice is further characterized by pervasive racial discrimination, the peculiar “War on Drugs,” the dehumanizing treatment of juveniles, and routine use of harmful solitary confinement. Modern America has thus become a systematic human rights violator in criminal law and punishment. It was not always so, as foreigners once saw American justice as enlightened.
Harsh justice has not made America particularly safe. It has the highest murder rate and the most gun violence in the West due to extraordinarily lax gun control shaped by die-hard partisans of the Second Amendment and lobbying by the NRA.
Criminal justice reform gained more attention after shootings of unarmed black men in Ferguson and beyond led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. However, historical root causes behind this dimension of American exceptionalism have been widely overlooked, including systemic racism, populism, anti-intellectualism, market fundamentalism, and religious fundamentalism.

The introduction reviews the relevant histories of prisons, mental health policy, and the social welfare state. It highlights how recent scholarship has not connected the history of mental hospitals ...
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The introduction reviews the relevant histories of prisons, mental health policy, and the social welfare state. It highlights how recent scholarship has not connected the history of mental hospitals to the broader history of imprisonment. From Asylum to Prison frames historic mental hospitals as part of a broader carceral state and charts how the rise of mass incarceration shaped the closure of mental hospitals. Law and order politics served to criminalize mental health conditions and substance abuse. New prison construction in the 1980s took money away from mental health services and prisons absorbed many functions of the former mental health system. Finally, this history of deinstitutionalization offers lesson for people working to reduce mass incarceration in the twenty-first century United States. The introduction closes with a discussion of people-centered language and key terms such as institutions, carceral state, and mental illness.Less

Introduction

Anne E. Parsons

Published in print: 2018-10-08

The introduction reviews the relevant histories of prisons, mental health policy, and the social welfare state. It highlights how recent scholarship has not connected the history of mental hospitals to the broader history of imprisonment. From Asylum to Prison frames historic mental hospitals as part of a broader carceral state and charts how the rise of mass incarceration shaped the closure of mental hospitals. Law and order politics served to criminalize mental health conditions and substance abuse. New prison construction in the 1980s took money away from mental health services and prisons absorbed many functions of the former mental health system. Finally, this history of deinstitutionalization offers lesson for people working to reduce mass incarceration in the twenty-first century United States. The introduction closes with a discussion of people-centered language and key terms such as institutions, carceral state, and mental illness.

A popular form of retributivism insists that the permissibility of punishment is dependent solely upon the rights of the parties, with the social costs or benefits of a system of punishment relegated ...
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A popular form of retributivism insists that the permissibility of punishment is dependent solely upon the rights of the parties, with the social costs or benefits of a system of punishment relegated at best to a supporting role in justifying punishment. This chapter explains why theories of that form—despite their current popularity—cannot explain the moral judgment that the United States currently incarcerates too many people. Most commentators, including proponents of this type of theory, are inclined to believe that the United States does incarcerate too many people—that a policy of “mass incarceration” is unjustified. However, mass incarceration represents a failure of social policy, and is not readily analyzed in terms of the morality of individual transactions. The chapter concludes by briefly sketching how the political ideal of anti-deference might be brought to bear on the question of mass incarceration.Less

Mass Incarceration and the Theory of Punishment

Vincent Chiao

Published in print: 2018-11-26

A popular form of retributivism insists that the permissibility of punishment is dependent solely upon the rights of the parties, with the social costs or benefits of a system of punishment relegated at best to a supporting role in justifying punishment. This chapter explains why theories of that form—despite their current popularity—cannot explain the moral judgment that the United States currently incarcerates too many people. Most commentators, including proponents of this type of theory, are inclined to believe that the United States does incarcerate too many people—that a policy of “mass incarceration” is unjustified. However, mass incarceration represents a failure of social policy, and is not readily analyzed in terms of the morality of individual transactions. The chapter concludes by briefly sketching how the political ideal of anti-deference might be brought to bear on the question of mass incarceration.

This chapter first briefly introduces readers of some arguments made in an earlier work, Children of the Prison Boom (2013). This book made three core arguments, the first of which was that 25 per ...
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This chapter first briefly introduces readers of some arguments made in an earlier work, Children of the Prison Boom (2013). This book made three core arguments, the first of which was that 25 per cent of recent birth cohorts of African-American children could expect to experience the imprisonment of a father. In addition, the book outlined a host of theoretical mechanisms through which paternal incarceration could affect child wellbeing. Finally, Children of the Prison Boom generates estimates of how mass imprisonment might have affected Black-White inequality in childhood wellbeing in the United States. The chapter then broadens these arguments beyond the narrow confines of the United States and the Black-White dichotomy.Less

How Much Might Mass Imprisonment Affect Childhood Inequality?

Sara WakefieldChristopher Wildeman

Published in print: 2018-10-11

This chapter first briefly introduces readers of some arguments made in an earlier work, Children of the Prison Boom (2013). This book made three core arguments, the first of which was that 25 per cent of recent birth cohorts of African-American children could expect to experience the imprisonment of a father. In addition, the book outlined a host of theoretical mechanisms through which paternal incarceration could affect child wellbeing. Finally, Children of the Prison Boom generates estimates of how mass imprisonment might have affected Black-White inequality in childhood wellbeing in the United States. The chapter then broadens these arguments beyond the narrow confines of the United States and the Black-White dichotomy.

This introductory chapter provides a snapshot of maternal care in jails and how it reveals two deeply entrenched crises in U.S. society: mass incarceration and health care inequalities. Jail and the ...
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This introductory chapter provides a snapshot of maternal care in jails and how it reveals two deeply entrenched crises in U.S. society: mass incarceration and health care inequalities. Jail and the broader system of incarceration, referred to as the “carceral system,” have become an integral part of U.S. society's social and medical safety net. The chapter illustrates a historical trajectory that is peculiar to the United States and that represents one of its greatest tragedies, defined by the whittling away of public services for the poor, coupled with an escalation in the number of jails and prisons serving as sites for the care of that same population. Statistics on the disproportionate number of incarcerated women and people of color are also discussed. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of jailcare conditions in San Francisco's jail, which serves as the case study for this volume.Less

Introduction

Carolyn Sufrin

Published in print: 2017-05-23

This introductory chapter provides a snapshot of maternal care in jails and how it reveals two deeply entrenched crises in U.S. society: mass incarceration and health care inequalities. Jail and the broader system of incarceration, referred to as the “carceral system,” have become an integral part of U.S. society's social and medical safety net. The chapter illustrates a historical trajectory that is peculiar to the United States and that represents one of its greatest tragedies, defined by the whittling away of public services for the poor, coupled with an escalation in the number of jails and prisons serving as sites for the care of that same population. Statistics on the disproportionate number of incarcerated women and people of color are also discussed. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of jailcare conditions in San Francisco's jail, which serves as the case study for this volume.

Judah Schept

Published in print:

1942

Published Online:

May 2016

ISBN:

9781479810710

eISBN:

9781479802821

Item type:

book

Publisher:

NYU Press

DOI:

10.18574/nyu/9781479810710.001.0001

Subject:

Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance

Progressive Punishment is an ethnographic case study of carceral expansion in Bloomington, Indiana. The book focuses primarily on the logics, discourses, spatial dimensions, and historical context of ...
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Progressive Punishment is an ethnographic case study of carceral expansion in Bloomington, Indiana. The book focuses primarily on the logics, discourses, spatial dimensions, and historical context of a proposal for a “justice campus,” a complex of facilities that would have significantly expanded local criminal justice infrastructure and scope. In centering the discourses of therapeutic justice, rehabilitation, and social justice in its critique, this book considers the role of liberal benevolence in the politics of carceral expansion. The book also examines how the carceral was constituted beyond the institutional formations of incarceration through so-called alternative sanctions that, in fact, extended carceral logics and practices into the spheres of social service and education. The book uses the empirical material to think more historically and theoretically about the rise of the carceral state and the forces that constitute the conditions of its existence as well as those might constitute the conditions of its demise. The book concerns the roots and routes of carceral logics—their origins and their circulations—as they set the conditions for and animated continued growth in Bloomington and beyond. The book critically examines how neoliberal ideology naturalizes carceral expansion into the political common sense of communities reeling from crises of deindustrialization, urban decline, and the devolution of social welfare. In addition, the book chronicles community activists’ attempts to destabilize that common sense and shake the community’s reliance on incarceration. Bloomington is simultaneously the community under study in this book and a heuristic for a broader consideration of the logics underlying and animating the carceral state.Less

Judah Schept

Published in print: 1942-04-23

Progressive Punishment is an ethnographic case study of carceral expansion in Bloomington, Indiana. The book focuses primarily on the logics, discourses, spatial dimensions, and historical context of a proposal for a “justice campus,” a complex of facilities that would have significantly expanded local criminal justice infrastructure and scope. In centering the discourses of therapeutic justice, rehabilitation, and social justice in its critique, this book considers the role of liberal benevolence in the politics of carceral expansion. The book also examines how the carceral was constituted beyond the institutional formations of incarceration through so-called alternative sanctions that, in fact, extended carceral logics and practices into the spheres of social service and education. The book uses the empirical material to think more historically and theoretically about the rise of the carceral state and the forces that constitute the conditions of its existence as well as those might constitute the conditions of its demise. The book concerns the roots and routes of carceral logics—their origins and their circulations—as they set the conditions for and animated continued growth in Bloomington and beyond. The book critically examines how neoliberal ideology naturalizes carceral expansion into the political common sense of communities reeling from crises of deindustrialization, urban decline, and the devolution of social welfare. In addition, the book chronicles community activists’ attempts to destabilize that common sense and shake the community’s reliance on incarceration. Bloomington is simultaneously the community under study in this book and a heuristic for a broader consideration of the logics underlying and animating the carceral state.

Building the Prison State is a new look at why the United States locks millions of people behind bars, in harsh conditions, with little opportunity to better themselves, for long periods of time. ...
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Building the Prison State is a new look at why the United States locks millions of people behind bars, in harsh conditions, with little opportunity to better themselves, for long periods of time. Drawing on the story of one high incarceration state between 1950 and 2016, the book argues that racial conflicts led to the bureaucratization and modernization of policing, courts, and corrections. The book demonstrates that policymakers’ investments in carceral capacity in the 1960s and 1970s built the foundation for the punitive carceral state by empowering law enforcement and victims and incentivizing tough-on-crime political posturing. As a result, despite the high fiscal costs and grave collateral consequences, politicians from both sides of the aisle advocated for more prisons and longer prison sentences. Richly contextualized in Florida and the nation’s partisan and racial politics, the book takes readers through civil rights protests, lawsuits over prison conditions, attempts at sentencing reform, the advent of the War on Drugs, and the rise of conservative politics. By focusing on the choices made by politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, and activists, the book demonstrates that mass incarceration was not inevitable. It concludes that reversing prison growth will require changing political incentives and developing a new ideological basis for criminal punishment.Less

Building the Prison State : Race and the Politics of Mass Incarceration

Heather Schoenfeld

Published in print: 2018-02-19

Building the Prison State is a new look at why the United States locks millions of people behind bars, in harsh conditions, with little opportunity to better themselves, for long periods of time. Drawing on the story of one high incarceration state between 1950 and 2016, the book argues that racial conflicts led to the bureaucratization and modernization of policing, courts, and corrections. The book demonstrates that policymakers’ investments in carceral capacity in the 1960s and 1970s built the foundation for the punitive carceral state by empowering law enforcement and victims and incentivizing tough-on-crime political posturing. As a result, despite the high fiscal costs and grave collateral consequences, politicians from both sides of the aisle advocated for more prisons and longer prison sentences. Richly contextualized in Florida and the nation’s partisan and racial politics, the book takes readers through civil rights protests, lawsuits over prison conditions, attempts at sentencing reform, the advent of the War on Drugs, and the rise of conservative politics. By focusing on the choices made by politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, and activists, the book demonstrates that mass incarceration was not inevitable. It concludes that reversing prison growth will require changing political incentives and developing a new ideological basis for criminal punishment.

This chapter introduces the core claims, concepts, and contributions of the book. It argues that mass incarceration was not inevitable. Policymakers had to choose to build state capacity to arrest, ...
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This chapter introduces the core claims, concepts, and contributions of the book. It argues that mass incarceration was not inevitable. Policymakers had to choose to build state capacity to arrest, process, and punish people deemed criminal. Examining decisions to build carceral capacity provides a new way to understand the development of the carceral state, or the network of people and institutions responsible for the United States’ system of criminal punishment. A political developmental perspective draws attention to the interaction of national and subnational policy and politics in creating the carceral state. It also contributes to current debates about the role of crime, media, and public opinion in fostering politicians’ support for punitive policies. Finally, this perspective incorporates the role of race in the development of the carceral state through the device of racial projects, or collective actors’ response to historical racial hierarchies, which inform policymakers’ penal policy decisions.Less

A New Perspective on the Carceral State

Heather Schoenfeld

Published in print: 2018-02-19

This chapter introduces the core claims, concepts, and contributions of the book. It argues that mass incarceration was not inevitable. Policymakers had to choose to build state capacity to arrest, process, and punish people deemed criminal. Examining decisions to build carceral capacity provides a new way to understand the development of the carceral state, or the network of people and institutions responsible for the United States’ system of criminal punishment. A political developmental perspective draws attention to the interaction of national and subnational policy and politics in creating the carceral state. It also contributes to current debates about the role of crime, media, and public opinion in fostering politicians’ support for punitive policies. Finally, this perspective incorporates the role of race in the development of the carceral state through the device of racial projects, or collective actors’ response to historical racial hierarchies, which inform policymakers’ penal policy decisions.

Bill O’Neill offers a provocative philosophical and theological reflection on the ‘moral squint’ of restorative justice—which he links tightly with the Catholic Social Teaching—in deliberative ...
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Bill O’Neill offers a provocative philosophical and theological reflection on the ‘moral squint’ of restorative justice—which he links tightly with the Catholic Social Teaching—in deliberative democracy. O’Neill argues that restorative justice, as opposed to the forms of retributive justice that predominate in the American penal system (embodied in the contemporary phenomenon of mass incarceration), more justly and more comprehensively attends, first and foremost, to the victims of violence, but, secondarily, it also attends to the perpetrators of violence (many of whom, often enough, are themselves victims of personal and/or systematic violence). O’Neill make the theological turn to the narratives of Christian ethics—particularly to the story of the Good Samaritan—to stress the call made to all persons to act toward others, not simply retributively, but in a way that restores their human rights and their dignity.Less

“First Be Reconciled”: Restorative Justice and Deliberative Democracy

William R. O’Neill

Published in print: 2015-11-02

Bill O’Neill offers a provocative philosophical and theological reflection on the ‘moral squint’ of restorative justice—which he links tightly with the Catholic Social Teaching—in deliberative democracy. O’Neill argues that restorative justice, as opposed to the forms of retributive justice that predominate in the American penal system (embodied in the contemporary phenomenon of mass incarceration), more justly and more comprehensively attends, first and foremost, to the victims of violence, but, secondarily, it also attends to the perpetrators of violence (many of whom, often enough, are themselves victims of personal and/or systematic violence). O’Neill make the theological turn to the narratives of Christian ethics—particularly to the story of the Good Samaritan—to stress the call made to all persons to act toward others, not simply retributively, but in a way that restores their human rights and their dignity.

The United States has a dual justice system; the FTE sector pays fines, and the low-wage sector goes to jail. One out of three black males spends time in prison in a new Jim Crow system. Poor white ...
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The United States has a dual justice system; the FTE sector pays fines, and the low-wage sector goes to jail. One out of three black males spends time in prison in a new Jim Crow system. Poor white men are far less likely to be imprisoned, but they still are a majority of prisoners. This dual system is administered by all levels of government, from the Supreme Court to local police and prosecutors. Mass imprisonment destroys social capital in black, brown and white communities alike. Mass imprisonment costs the government large amounts of money that could be used elsewhere. Current policies are complicated by the growth of private prisons and restricted to helping prisoners re-join society.Less

Mass Incarceration

Peter Temin

Published in print: 2017-03-15

The United States has a dual justice system; the FTE sector pays fines, and the low-wage sector goes to jail. One out of three black males spends time in prison in a new Jim Crow system. Poor white men are far less likely to be imprisoned, but they still are a majority of prisoners. This dual system is administered by all levels of government, from the Supreme Court to local police and prosecutors. Mass imprisonment destroys social capital in black, brown and white communities alike. Mass imprisonment costs the government large amounts of money that could be used elsewhere. Current policies are complicated by the growth of private prisons and restricted to helping prisoners re-join society.

In this chapter, Jonathan Simon argues that the modern criminal system should adopt the value of dignity as its governing ideal. The chapter argues that the legality principle—once a primary engine ...
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In this chapter, Jonathan Simon argues that the modern criminal system should adopt the value of dignity as its governing ideal. The chapter argues that the legality principle—once a primary engine for strengthening the criminal system’s democratic legitimacy—has exhausted its sociological and jurisprudential power. Surveying 150 years of criminal legal commitments, this chapter shows how the legality principle rose to prominence as a vehicle for reform and accountability, and then fell under pressure from mass incarceration and institutional racism. Accordingly, the legality principle should be supplemented with a dignity principle, “an increasingly prominent value in legal systems internationally since the middle of the 20th century.” Simon traces the development of various forms of dignity in Supreme Court jurisprudence, from police procedure to prison conditions, determinate sentencing, and mental health. The chapter concludes that “the great banner reading ‘nulla poena sinelege’ must now be, not lowered, but joined by another banner of ‘no crime and no punishment without respect for human dignity.’”Less

The Second Coming of Dignity

Jonathan Simon

Published in print: 2017-03-31

In this chapter, Jonathan Simon argues that the modern criminal system should adopt the value of dignity as its governing ideal. The chapter argues that the legality principle—once a primary engine for strengthening the criminal system’s democratic legitimacy—has exhausted its sociological and jurisprudential power. Surveying 150 years of criminal legal commitments, this chapter shows how the legality principle rose to prominence as a vehicle for reform and accountability, and then fell under pressure from mass incarceration and institutional racism. Accordingly, the legality principle should be supplemented with a dignity principle, “an increasingly prominent value in legal systems internationally since the middle of the 20th century.” Simon traces the development of various forms of dignity in Supreme Court jurisprudence, from police procedure to prison conditions, determinate sentencing, and mental health. The chapter concludes that “the great banner reading ‘nulla poena sinelege’ must now be, not lowered, but joined by another banner of ‘no crime and no punishment without respect for human dignity.’”

Mass incarceration is one of the most pressing ethical and political issues of our time. In this volume, philosophers join activists and those incarcerated on death row to grapple with contemporary ...
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Mass incarceration is one of the most pressing ethical and political issues of our time. In this volume, philosophers join activists and those incarcerated on death row to grapple with contemporary U.S. punishment practices and draw out critiques around questions of power, identity, justice, and ethical responsibility. The United States incarcerates more of its own citizens than any other country in the world. A disproportionate number of these prisoners are people of color, and, today, a black man has a greater chance of going to prison than to college. The United States is the only Western democracy to retain the death penalty, even after decades of scholarship, statistics, and even legal decisions have depicted a deeply flawed system structured by racism and class oppression. Motivated by a conviction that mass incarceration and state execution are among the most important ethical and political problems of our time, the chapters critique, and envision, alternatives to the injustices of the U.S. prison system, with recourse to deconstruction, phenomenology, critical race theory, feminism, queer theory, and disability studies. The resulting collection contributes to a growing intellectual and political resistance to the apparent inevitability of incarceration and state execution as responses to crime and to social inequalities. It addresses both philosophers and activists who seek intellectual resources to contest the injustices of punishment in the United States.Less

Death and Other Penalties : Philosophy in a Time of Mass Incarceration

Published in print: 2015-04-01

Mass incarceration is one of the most pressing ethical and political issues of our time. In this volume, philosophers join activists and those incarcerated on death row to grapple with contemporary U.S. punishment practices and draw out critiques around questions of power, identity, justice, and ethical responsibility. The United States incarcerates more of its own citizens than any other country in the world. A disproportionate number of these prisoners are people of color, and, today, a black man has a greater chance of going to prison than to college. The United States is the only Western democracy to retain the death penalty, even after decades of scholarship, statistics, and even legal decisions have depicted a deeply flawed system structured by racism and class oppression. Motivated by a conviction that mass incarceration and state execution are among the most important ethical and political problems of our time, the chapters critique, and envision, alternatives to the injustices of the U.S. prison system, with recourse to deconstruction, phenomenology, critical race theory, feminism, queer theory, and disability studies. The resulting collection contributes to a growing intellectual and political resistance to the apparent inevitability of incarceration and state execution as responses to crime and to social inequalities. It addresses both philosophers and activists who seek intellectual resources to contest the injustices of punishment in the United States.

The epilogue reflects on the contemporary crisis of mass incarceration in the United States, which has particularly affected people with mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders. It ...
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The epilogue reflects on the contemporary crisis of mass incarceration in the United States, which has particularly affected people with mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders. It argues that today’s crisis is deeply rooted in the past history of mental health policy and offers a few main lessons for people working to make change. First, restrictive environments such as prisons and mental hospitals are inappropriate places to hold people on a mass scale. Second, it cautions people who are working to decarcerate prisons today. The history of deinstitutionalization proved that that cost-cutting cannot be the main reason for change, as it led to inadequate resources. People invested in prison reform should also be cautious that decarceration does not lead to new forms of restrictive environments, which happened during deinstitutionalization.Less

Epilogue

Anne E. Parsons

Published in print: 2018-10-08

The epilogue reflects on the contemporary crisis of mass incarceration in the United States, which has particularly affected people with mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders. It argues that today’s crisis is deeply rooted in the past history of mental health policy and offers a few main lessons for people working to make change. First, restrictive environments such as prisons and mental hospitals are inappropriate places to hold people on a mass scale. Second, it cautions people who are working to decarcerate prisons today. The history of deinstitutionalization proved that that cost-cutting cannot be the main reason for change, as it led to inadequate resources. People invested in prison reform should also be cautious that decarceration does not lead to new forms of restrictive environments, which happened during deinstitutionalization.

This chapter examines how the system of pleas impacts two areas that receive special attention in criminal justice: (1) sentencing disparities and (2) mass incarceration. The first section discusses ...
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This chapter examines how the system of pleas impacts two areas that receive special attention in criminal justice: (1) sentencing disparities and (2) mass incarceration. The first section discusses ways that plea bargaining leads to different punishment levels for individuals whose criminal conduct is otherwise similar. These differences include reduced punishment due to count or charge reductions, or favorable sentence recommendations or agreements, in exchange for a willingness to plead guilty or to provide assistance to the prosecution and law enforcement. The next section discusses how the system of pleas enables mass incarceration. Although the system of pleas was well established by the onset of mass incarceration, and thus did not cause mass incarceration, plea bargaining did create the infrastructure that made mass incarceration possible.Less

Sentencing Disparity and Mass Incarceration

Rhys Hester

Published in print: 2019-05-03

This chapter examines how the system of pleas impacts two areas that receive special attention in criminal justice: (1) sentencing disparities and (2) mass incarceration. The first section discusses ways that plea bargaining leads to different punishment levels for individuals whose criminal conduct is otherwise similar. These differences include reduced punishment due to count or charge reductions, or favorable sentence recommendations or agreements, in exchange for a willingness to plead guilty or to provide assistance to the prosecution and law enforcement. The next section discusses how the system of pleas enables mass incarceration. Although the system of pleas was well established by the onset of mass incarceration, and thus did not cause mass incarceration, plea bargaining did create the infrastructure that made mass incarceration possible.

Americans are far more divided than other Westerners over basic issues, including wealth inequality, health care, climate change, evolution, the literal truth of the Bible, apocalyptical prophecies, ...
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Americans are far more divided than other Westerners over basic issues, including wealth inequality, health care, climate change, evolution, the literal truth of the Bible, apocalyptical prophecies, gender roles, abortion, gay rights, sexual education, gun control, mass incarceration, the death penalty, torture, human rights, and war. The intense polarization of U.S. conservatives and liberals has become a key dimension of American exceptionalism—an idea widely misunderstood as American superiority. It is rather what makes America an exception, for better or worse. While exceptionalism once was largely a source of strength, it may now spell decline, as unique features of U.S. history, politics, law, culture, religion, and race relations foster grave conflicts and injustices. They also shed light on the peculiar ideological evolution of American conservatism, which long predated Trumpism. Anti-intellectualism, conspiracy-mongering, radical anti-governmentalism, and Christian fundamentalism are far more common in America than Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Drawing inspiration from Alexis de Tocqueville, Mugambi Jouet explores American exceptionalism’s intriguing roots as a multicultural outsider-insider. Raised in Paris by a French mother and Kenyan father, he then lived throughout America, from the Bible Belt to New York, California, and beyond. His articles have notably been featured in The New Republic, Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Huffington Post, and Le Monde. He teaches at Stanford Law School.Less

Exceptional America : What Divides Americans from the World and from Each Other

Mugambi Jouet

Published in print: 2017-04-03

Americans are far more divided than other Westerners over basic issues, including wealth inequality, health care, climate change, evolution, the literal truth of the Bible, apocalyptical prophecies, gender roles, abortion, gay rights, sexual education, gun control, mass incarceration, the death penalty, torture, human rights, and war. The intense polarization of U.S. conservatives and liberals has become a key dimension of American exceptionalism—an idea widely misunderstood as American superiority. It is rather what makes America an exception, for better or worse. While exceptionalism once was largely a source of strength, it may now spell decline, as unique features of U.S. history, politics, law, culture, religion, and race relations foster grave conflicts and injustices. They also shed light on the peculiar ideological evolution of American conservatism, which long predated Trumpism. Anti-intellectualism, conspiracy-mongering, radical anti-governmentalism, and Christian fundamentalism are far more common in America than Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Drawing inspiration from Alexis de Tocqueville, Mugambi Jouet explores American exceptionalism’s intriguing roots as a multicultural outsider-insider. Raised in Paris by a French mother and Kenyan father, he then lived throughout America, from the Bible Belt to New York, California, and beyond. His articles have notably been featured in The New Republic, Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Huffington Post, and Le Monde. He teaches at Stanford Law School.